Trivia: Polish actress Anny Ondra (born Anna Sophie Ondrakowa in Tarnow, Poland) starred in a number of films in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, and Great Britain between the late teens and the early '50s.

Trivia: British actor John Longden played the hero in a number of silent films during the late '20s and into the '30s. He later became a noted character actor. Before becoming an actor, Longden, a native of the West Indies, worked as a mining engineer.

Trivia: Donald Calthrop came to acting as a birthright, descended as he was from 19th-century theatrical impresario Dion Boucicault. He made his theatrical debut in 1906 at age 18, and his screen debut in 1918. The gaunt, sharp-featured Calthrop, with his intense stare -- resembling his better-known younger contemporaries John Laurie and Duncan Macrae -- was most often cast as villains, and is probably best-remembered today for his sinister portrayals in Alfred Hitchcock's early work. He skulked his way through Blackmail (1929) as well as Hitchcock's non-thriller Juno and the Paycock (1930) and the suspense pieces Murder (1930) and Number Seventeen (1932), all of which are among the most widely seen of early British talkies, thanks to their director. Calthrop occasionally played sympathetic roles, such as Bob Crachit in the Seymour Hicks version of Scrooge (1935) -- which was heavily shown on public television and low-power television stations during the early 1980s -- and even comedic foils, as in the historical drama Fire Over England (1936). But he was more often seen as malevolent or disreputable characters, the latter most notably -- apart from the Hitchcock films -- in The Ghost Train (1931) and Rome Express (1932). The final decade of his personal and professional life was blighted by a tragic incident that took place during the shooting of the 1930 talkie Spanish Eyes. According to author Matthew Sweet in his 2006 book Shepperton Babylon, Calthrop had invited a young chorus girl named Nita Foy, who was also working on the film up to his dressing room for some brandy, and while there her costume caught fire. The young actress died, and the tragedy destroyed Calthrop's marriage, as well as turning the actor into a habitual alcoholic, which cost him a good deal of his career momentum. A decade later, he finally ascended to a movie role worthy of his talent with Gabriel Pascal's production of Major Barbara (1941), based on the George Bernard Shaw play. Calthrop was cast in the film as Peter Shirley, the angry, disillusioned fitter who has been forced out of his job because of his age, under doubly tragic circumstances (his age was revealed at the coroner's inquest for his daughter . . . ). The role allowed the actor some superb scenes with Robert Newton and Wendy Hiller, and he might well have gotten a new lease on life, at least professionally, from the acclaimed, prestigious production (and doubly so, as David Lean was actually responsible for a good deal of the direction credited to producer Pascal). Alas, Calthrop died of a heart attack very early in the production of the movie, in July of 1940 -- he had been deceased over a year at the time of Major Barbara's opening in the summer of 1941.

Trivia: Born to a middle-class Irish family and educated at the Marlborough Street Training College, 19-year-old Sara Allgood joined the Irish National Theatre Society, obtaining her first speaking role in a 1903 production of W.B. Yeats' The King's Threshold. She became a member of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1904; within a few years she was lauded as Ireland's foremost actress. While touring Australia in 1918, she made her film bow in Just Peggy. She didn't like the experience, and it would be eleven years before she would face the cameras again, this time in the role of Anna Ondra's mother in Blackmail (1929), Alfred Hitchcock's (and the British film industry's) first talkie. One year later, Hitchcock cast Sara in the demanding title role in the cinematic adaptation of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, a role she had created on stage with the Abbey Players in 1924. After a decade of worthwhile stage assignments and forgettable film roles, Sara came to Hollywood in 1940, where she was cast by John Ford in a strong role in the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941). This led to a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, which was financially satisfying but dramatically unrewarding; after years of incisive, commanding stage roles, Sara was compelled to play cliched Irish mothers and servants. Sara Allgood's final screen appearance was in Fox's Cheaper By the Dozen (1950), in which she received prominent billing--and approximately five lines of dialogue.

Trivia: Popular light comedian Cyril Ritchard was an established London musical comedy star when in 1927 he launched his film career with the On With the Dance short subject series. He made his talking picture debut in Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) playing the licentious pianist who is murdered by heroine Anny Ondra (but not before singing the film's theme tune!). American baby-boomers will always remember Ritchard as the delightfully despicable Captain Hook in the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan, a role he first essayed on Broadway in 1953, then repeated on television in 1954, 1955, and 1960. His later stage credits include the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd; the last of his handful of screen appearances was in the 1967 film version of Half a Sixpence. Cyril Ritchard died at age 80, while starring in a musical revue.

Trivia: Alfred Hitchcock was the most well-known director to the general public, by virtue of both his many thrillers and his appearances on television in his own series from the mid-'50s through the early '60s. Probably more than any other filmmaker, his name evokes instant expectations on the part of audiences: at least two or three great chills (and a few more good ones), some striking black comedy, and an eccentric characterization or two in every one of the director's movies.Originally trained at a technical school, Hitchcock gravitated to movies through art courses and advertising, and by the mid-'20s he was making his first films. He had his first major success in 1926 with The Lodger, a thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. While he worked in a multitude of genres over the next six years, he found his greatest acceptance working with thrillers. His early work with these, including Blackmail (1929) and Murder (1930), seem primitive by modern standards, but have many of the essential elements of Hitchcock's subsequent successes, even if they are presented in technically rudimentary terms. Hitchcock came to international attention in the mid- to late '30s with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). By the end of the 1930s, having gone as far as the British film industry could take him, he signed a contract with David O. Selznick and came to America.From the outset, with the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940) and the topical anti-Nazi thrillers Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942), Hitchcock was one of Hollywood's "money" directors whose mere presence on a marquee attracted audiences. Although his relationship with Selznick was stormy, he created several fine and notable features while working for the producer, either directly for Selznick or on loan to RKO and Universal, including Spellbound (1945), probably the most romantic of Hitchcock's movies; Notorious (1946); and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), considered by many to be his most unsettling film.In 1948, after leaving Selznick, Hitchcock went through a fallow period, in which he experimented with new techniques and made his first independent production, Rope; but he found little success. In the early and mid-'50s, he returned to form with the thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951), which was remade in 1987 by Danny DeVito as Throw Momma From the Train; Dial M for Murder (1954), which was among the few successful 3-D movies; and Rear Window (1954). By the mid-'50s, Hitchcock's persona became the basis for the television anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran for eight seasons (although he only directed, or even participated as producer, in a mere handful of the shows). His films of the late '50s became more personal and daring, particularly The Trouble With Harry (1955) and Vertigo (1958), in which the dark side of romantic obsession was explored in startling detail. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and all were phenomenally popular -- The Birds, in particular, managed to set a new record for its first network television showing in the mid-'60s.By then, however, Hitchcock's films had slipped seriously at the box office. Both Marnie (1964) and Torn Curtain (1966) suffered from major casting problems, and the script of Torn Curtain was terribly unfocused. The director was also hurt by the sudden departure of composer Bernard Herrmann (who had scored every Hitchcock's movie since 1957) during the making of Torn Curtain, as Herrmann's music had become a key element of the success of Hitchcock's films. Of his final three movies, only Frenzy (1972), which marked his return to British thrillers after 30 years, was successful, although his last film, Family Plot (1976), has achieved some respect from cult audiences. In the early '80s, several years after his death in 1980, Hitchcock's box-office appeal was once again displayed with the re-release of Rope, The Trouble With Harry, his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo, all of which had been withheld from distribution for several years, but which earned millions of dollars in new theatrical revenues.

Trivia: Seemingly born in a tuxedo, British actor John Stuart began his stage and screen career directly after World War I service in The Black Watch. Stuart was a very popular leading man in British silent films, though it's hard to gauge that popularity since many of his best films of the '20s -- A Sporting Double (1923), Constant Hot Water (1924), Tower of London (1926) -- are either inaccessible or nonexistent. Remaining popular after his talkie debut in Kitty (1929), Stuart matured into character parts, spending much of World War II playing government officials and police inspectors. After showing up in the company of virtually the entire British film industry in 1951's The Magic Box, Stuart settled into bits and cameo roles in such films of the '50s and '60s as Your Past is Showing (1958), Blood of the Vampire (1958) and Sink the Bismarck (1960). One of his last appearances was a tiny role in Superman: The Movie (1978). An accomplished writer, John Stuart penned his autobiography, Caught in the Act, in 1971.